Rusty Shovel Restoration. Making the World's Fanciest Shovel

The Shovel... Often overlooked, under-appreciated and abused. Owned by many, but loved by few. Historians theorize that even the dinosaurs used shovels before realizing their tiny arms could not touch the ground. I am paying my respects to the tool that has been building empires and picking up dog dumplings for decades.

I took an old rusty shovel and did a full in depth restoration on it. I made a one-of-a-kind metal etch design with a custom walnut and white oak handle. Watch the entire process how this shovel goes from Trash to Cash and becomes the self proclaimed world's fanciest shovel!

1. Clamps, clamps and more clamps

2. hand plane

3. table saw

4. miter saw

5. orbital sander

6. sandpaper 100-2000 grits

7. Vinyl sticker

8. Transfer paper

9. Vinyl cutter machine (not needed, but helps out tremendously)

10. OLD car battery charger

11. files/ rasps

12. 5 minute epoxy

I wanted to do a two toned handle with a sandwich of white oak between walnut. I then added a cross section at 45 degree angles of white oak.

Once you have picked your wood, cut it to the correct thickness of the handle. I had to glue up two pieces of both the walnut and oak in order to get the thickness.

I used a hand plane to get two flat sides and then ran the walnut through the planer creating 4 flat sides. I then cut the white oak down to around 1/4" on the table saw, then put it through the planer until the desired thickness of around 3/16". Here you can see the "sandwiched" white oak with the walnut on both sides.

I used my miter saw to cut a 45 degree angles on both sides of the walnut creating a chevron pattern. I then repeated this process with the white oak and did a dry fit up.

I then glued up the entire handle in three different parts. It is tricky to do a glue up with these different angles so I highly recommend doing them in steps.

Once everything was glued up I used a 45 Degree angle bit on my router to chamfer all the sides.

I then shaped the front of the handle by using a combination of chisels, rasps, files and sandpaper. This took me a couple of hours to get the perfect fit. I then sanded down where the sleeve of the shovel met with the wood to make them seamless. Once everything was a good dry fit, I put three coats of an oil based finish on, sanding in between and buffing at the end.

I used a sandblaster to blast away some of the surface rust. I then used an orbital sander from 80 grit, up to 200 grit. This took a LOT of time. This shovel had a lot of pitting in the metal from years of rust, but I got it as shiny as I possibly could. Once I wet sanded up to 2000 grit I buffed it out on the buffing wheel.

Using my cricut cutter, I cut out a design that I wanted for the handle. I then used transfer paper to place the design onto both sides of the shovel. This was harder than it seems, because of the angles of the shovel I had to cut different parts of the design and piece them together.

I then used an electro-etching technique by putting the entire shovel into saltwater and using a car battery charger to etch away the metal. I left the shovel in the solution for around 3 hours at 10 amps.

Once complete, I removed all the vinyl stickers to reveal the etched design. I then finished off the metal by rubbing it down with some oil.

I first used 5 minute epoxy to attach the shovel to the handle. I then drove a brass pin into the handle, and hammered them down on both sides creating a brass head. The Shovel is now complete!